


One Death Or Another

by Sweety_Mutant



Series: What if? The Great Escape [8]
Category: The Great Escape (1963)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Feels, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-25
Updated: 2018-10-25
Packaged: 2019-08-07 12:24:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16408457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sweety_Mutant/pseuds/Sweety_Mutant
Summary: What if Eric had not shot Khun at the station, but Preissen?





	One Death Or Another

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Anonymous](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anonymous/gifts).



> So, that was an unexpected request, to say the least! But I am really glad I got to work on some TGE -and actually got to publish it for once... because I keep on writing TGE fics but never publish them.  
> Anyway, enjoy your read!

There was something addictive to the feeling of freedom rushing through one's veins. Eric had to maintain appearances, a sharp suit and clean shoes, to go with his escape persona, yet he felt an urge to run, run wild into the woods, as soon as he stepped out of the tunnel. He could forget the escape routes, forget about everything, and just be free, just enough time to live.

Yet Eric did no such thing. He took the planned route, waited at the station as the sun rose above the pine trees. He picked up a seemingly abandoned newspaper on a bench, and skipped through the headlines, looking like the perfectly busy gentleman. He did not spare the others a look. He could feel their presence a few feet away, but even a glance in their direction was dangerous.

The slightest lapse in concentration was enough to give someone away, and Eric would never take that risk.

Waiting for the train, he looked natural, but could feel the blood in his feet, pumping, urging his most basic survival instincts to run, run, away from the danger and the men in uniform on the other side of the tracks.

When the train came and stopped at the station, Eric had not run away. A common tremor ran through the spine of all present escapees, in tune with the train's whistle.

Eric folded the newspaper, taking his glasses off. He walked to the train, his steps slow and deliberate. It was his ticket to freedom, he was in no rush after all. Looking left and right as he climbed, out of worry? Two cars had pulled up in the station,  _ looking for us no doubt.  _ From the corner of his eye, he saw Blythe and Hendley climb in the train. Roger and Mac had already blended into the crowd.

As swiftly as he had arrived, the train left, a chorus of metal noises, and smoke whistling. It was all too real now.

Eric was nervous. The wooden seats of the train were uncomfortable, he felt like he was sticking out like a sore thumb. It was a normal fear. Necessary for survival.  _ Foolish American, what is he doing up?  _ Eric averted his eyes, looking through the window. He should not have paid attention to that. No one in the train had cared. The landscape outside was pretty, he noted. Green rolling hills and small villages in the distance. No traces of the war to be seen there.

A few seconds later, Hendley was back in the compartment, but instead of sitting down next to Blythe, he got closer to Eric, as if he tried to look at something through the window.

_ What in the name of God is he doing? _

A whisper, a few inches away from his ear. “Tally-ho.” And with that Hendley was gone.

_ Oh, thanks I guess.  _ Eric straightened his back. He trusted his voice, his german accent. He trusted his documents, Blythe's work.

Eric turned his head in time to see him lead Blythe out of their compartment.  _ I hope you'll make it.  _ Eric put his glasses back on, better be ready for the trouble. He breathed in, out, in, his eyes fluttering close for an instant. Putting his mask back on.

Two men went in through the door opposite to which Blythe and Hendley had left. Two in uniform, one without.  _ Gestapo? _

Eric looked politely annoyed as the man asked to control his identity papers. Not even looking up from his newspaper until he was asked to provide further justification for his trip. It was easy. Everything was planned, and better, everything was going according to plan.

The train trip went well after that. Too well, maybe, but Eric was relieved. If only, for once, everything could end well... he would never ask for anything more.

The afternoon was underway when the train reached Eric's destination. The station was crowded, and much to Eric's horror, he noticed many soldiers outside. It was logical after all. The consequence of their coup-du-siècle. It would be yet another test, yet another risk.

Not only soldiers, he noticed, but SS and Gestapo too. Eric smiled secretly to himself. They must have been so embarrassed!

Eric got out of the train, taking his time. The soldiers were checking each passenger, forcing them in a line. It would take time to check on everybody, and so he had time to think about his next move.

He watched Mac and Roger from afar, nonchalant. He watched the crowd, when he should have been taking care of his own fate. To survive, one must be selfish to some extent. Eric had never believed that. He loved too much, loved too hard to be selfish.

He had loved his men too much when they had lost the ship to the German planes. He had died with each one of them, he had drowned a hundred times, worn his grief with the pride of an officer.

Eric had loved his country too much to abandon hope. Fight on, hold on, his will stronger with each year spent behind barbed wire.

Roger and Mac were doing good, and so Eric was satisfied. That they were among the ones with the highest chances to succeed was no surprise for Eric. Yet at the same time he was well aware of the metaphoric bounty on their heads. The bounty on his head too, to a lesser extent.

But Eric was not selfish, and so he kept his eyes on his friends, until he saw him.

_ Him _ .

A man he had learned the name through Roger. A man he had only seen once, barbed wire between them, in a time that seemed infinitely long ago.  _ Preissen. _

The glasses, the mustache. It could only be him. Eric remembered the hatred in Roger's voice when he had spoken of him. The buried pain, too.

That man being here could only mean bad things. Eric stopped walking, and observed Preissen from the corner of his eye. He fidgeted with his suitcase,  _ bad things,  _ checked his watch, _ bad things,  _ checked his glasses, _ bad man.  _ Eric slowly followed Preissen, discretion be damned. He was too close to Roger, a few meters away.

Time slowed down as Roger slightly turned his head towards Mac in the line. A few words whispered as they prepared their Ausweis.

A small smile curved itself on Preissen's lips, the smile of the predator who had his prey cornered. Ready to pounce. “Bartlett.” The name was barely a whisper, but Eric heard it as if it had been shouted.  _ No! _

 

On the man's glasses Eric saw a reflection of these injuries he had never seen. The shiver running along Roger's back, the uncertainty in his step, masked before anyone but the closest to him could see. The shudder of a lip, the hesitation to take his shirt off. Scars that were barely there anymore, ghosts of a painful past. Three months. An even more painful future.  _ Please no... _

Roger had not spoken to Eric about these injuries, of the months spent at the hands of the Gestapo. He had brushed off any questions, ignoring his friends' worried glances. Protecting himself, bottling it up to brew his will to fight, his hatred of the enemy. Often, Eric had wondered if Roger had talked to Mac. In the dark of the night, in the safety of their shared room. Had he talked, the memories and the pain too much to remain silent anymore? Had Mac guessed, without any words? His skilled fingers tracing along red scar tissue, eyes locked with Roger, at the perfect moment when no words were needed. Their spirits merging into each other, sharing memories. A climactic understanding. Roger had always trusted Mac to keep his secrets. To him, he could talk. On him, he would lay his weary head and rest.

And Eric was left with imagined images, nightmarish possibilities he would now prevent from happening again. It would seal his fate, but if it prevented Roger from suffering once more at the hands of the Gestapo, then it was worth the ultimate price.

He would give Roger and Mac time to run. Let them make it together. Eric was happy to give them this chance.

His role in the war had lead to this exact moment. The world outside ceased to exist, his reason to live narrowing down to one last act.

…  _ in recognition of acts of exemplary gallantry— _

The ribbon was sewn above the breast pocket, his uniform safely hanging in the closet of a room he would never have considered his. What uses were there of honors and medals to dead men ?

Gallantry was worth it at that exact moment when Eric rushed at Preissen, knocking him off his feet.

Time came to a stop, the sun shining high on them. Quick movements, an unbalanced struggle as Eric tore the gun away from Preissen's hands, firing a deadly shot.

Done.

It was done. He was dead.

_ I did it— _

They were both dead.

_ RUN! _

A surge of instinct, time jumped forward as Eric ran. He ran away from the screaming crowd, as fast as his legs would carry him.

Screams of panic, shouts.

The crowd dropping to the ground as one.

A shot, past his shoulder. Eric did not turn his head, he was dead. A shot, he felt the searing pain in his side before he heard it.

But his legs were stronger, he ran on, but the pain was too much,

He fell on the tracks.  _ Is this how I die? _

Lying down on the train tracks, lost somewhere in eastern Germany on a sunny day of March 1944?

Eric felt his strength slowly sip out of his body as he futilely tried to get back up, his vision blurry, the sky turning red and black.

 

Some turn to God, in the darkest hour before their death. Eric found no comfort in God's embrace. He had done his duty, no thanks to God. He had been alone then, it had been his choice, a sacrifice done on his own free will. It had seemed so natural, when he was still alive. It had seemed like a good choice. The path to follow, the only way.

Death, a necessary consequence.

Eric did not even care about History remembering him. History was of no use to him now. His own story, coming to an end, the only end it could have had.

 

That day, Eric died his own man, happy.

He was dying a slow, painful death. He had done his duty, he had written the end to his story like he wanted. And whatever the consequences, no one could take that away from his cold, bloodied fingers.

They could desecrate his body now, burn him, crush him, he would not be there to care anymore. He had already willingly departed from the world as faceless soldiers dragged his body away from the train station, dumping him in a car. Driving away from the scattered crowd. Driving away from the crime scene, as the newspapers would say. Away from Roger and Mac.  _ Be safe... _

The car drove too fast for death, the doctors too skilled, but Eric felt no pain as the bullets were hastily removed from his back, in a futile attempt to bring him back to the living.

The Gestapo would not be happy with a corpse. Corpses do not suffer, corpses do not care, they won the war. Eric was almost a corpse, strands of consciousness still holding on to his exsanguinated body. His spirit imagined the events from above his body, studying the clammy skin, the bloody flowers on the dark suit. The slow, weak breaths. Severe wound, he had been willing to die from the moment he had fired the shot.

But his lithe body was strong. Young, weakened by captivity, but a pretty little war machine. Legs for days and a heart full of love. His heart, beating weak. His eyes, blank, unseeing. His face a mask of relieved agony.

The men probing him were like alchemists, a life for a life, blood rituals through transfusions. They were trying to keep him alive, only to kill him all over again. Yet deep inside, Eric had already departed, he was beyond the pain they wanted to inflict upon him. He was already dead. His consciousness faded to black as his heart went still for a second.

He died that day, yet he was still alive.

 

The reaper had always liked to take his time, and made no exceptions for heroic young officers. Oh, the wonders of modern medicine in the face of a certain death!

 

Eric awoke to pain. He was cold, his whole body was stiff, his legs unresponsive. There was light too, bright lights above him, and a voice. An accented voice turning around him like a vulture. Dark hair, a leather coat.

“You are awake,”  _ I was dead. _ “Lieutenant Commander Ashley-Pitt.”

He was supposed to be dead.

“A pretty diversion, you did there.”  _ I did my duty. I did it for England.  _ “You must have loved your friends very much.” He had been ready to give his life for Roger all along.

“But they cannot run forever.”  _ I did it all for him.  _ “We will catch them all in the end, and you will help us. You will suffer for Preissen's death. Too bad my men are not as good shots as you are, don't you think so?”

Eric closed his eyes, his body almost giving up. He would not look at the voice. He would not pray for death either, stuck here in the in-between.  _ Kill me now. Kill me later, I did my duty, I couldn't care less. _

“Yes, you are going to wish you had never put us through so much trouble.”

  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> I hope you liked it! Feel free to leave kudos and comments, I always like them!   
> Also, if you want to request some TGE fics, feel free to do so over on my Tumblr: http://sweetymutant.tumblr.com , this fandom needs more love!


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